Happiness Over the Lifespan (2024)

FAQs

What is the happiness curve of the lifespan? ›

Referred to as the Happiness U-Curve, the data show that on average, life satisfaction drops during midlife and begins its recovery around age 50, reaching its peak at the end of life. This perplexing phenomena and has been termed the paradox of aging.

The researchers found people reached their happiest when they arrived at the age of 70. Life satisfaction decreased between the ages of nine and 16, increased a little until the age of 70, and then declined again until the age of 96.

We take less notice of trivial matters. We savor life. We're more appreciative, more open to reconciliation. We invest in more emotionally important parts of life, and life gets better, so we're happier day-to-day,” she says, in a TED Talk titled Older People Are Happier.

Happiness was significantly associated with lower mortality (p < . 001) adjusted for age, sex and ethnicity: HR = 0.85 per integer score and HR = 0.57 for fairly-or-very happy versus fairly-or-very sad.

Put simply, at the age of 47.2, individuals across the world are often quite unhappy. Put a different way: Perhaps the midlife crisis truly does exist. Specifically, it's the fear of and the realities associated with growing older that seem to get most people down in the dumps.

In fact, that was what happiness looked like globally back in 2006–2010. At that time, people ages 45 to 59 were the least happy, followed by ages 30 to 44, those over 60, and finally the under 30s.

Most established adults we interviewed seemed to recognize that they were happier in their 30s than they were in their 20s, and this impacted how they thought about some of the signs of physical aging that they were starting to encounter.

Early adulthood (20-29 years)

This stage involves transitioning into adulthood, making significant life choices about career, relationships, and where to live, often without a clear roadmap.

The Economist's international survey of happiness gathered data from America's General Social Survey, Eurobarometer and Gallup finding an upward trajectory of happiness until age 30, a downward trend into midlife, with the lowest point reached at age 46, and up to higher levels again after the 50's.

No matter what the reason, one thing holds true: Although occasional sadness is normal for everyone, young and old, depression is not a normal part of aging. In fact, some research suggests that people tend to get happier as they get older. That's mainly because it becomes easier to control emotions.

What age do you enjoy life the most? ›

People begin life fairly happy. Around age 18, their happiness begins to decrease, reaching a low point in their 40s. But after age 50, happiness begins to rise again. This U-shaped happiness curve has emerged consistently in large studies of Western societies.

Turns out you might not be a grumpy old man (or woman), after all. You'll probably get more agreeable as you age, at least through your 60s. You're also likely to be happier and less inclined to get angry. Scientists haven't figured out exactly why this happens, but they do have some theories.

The study, published in the academic journal Psychology Bulletin, is based on 443 samples from studies involving a total of 460,902 participants. Life satisfaction was found to decrease between the ages of 9 and 16, then increase again slightly until the age of 70.

American scientists recently studied an old photo of a team of baseball players, and found that those who smiled in the shot did indeed live longer. The big smilers lived an average of 79.9 years. The partial smilers, 75 years. The non-smilers, 72.9.

Life satisfaction decreases gradually after early adulthood, bottoms at mid-age, and then gradually rebounds. This U-shape is not an inevitability, it is a tendency. And while there can be other patterns (a linear increase, a sharp “V”) these are more rare.

Believe it or not, an analysis of 443 studies comprised of more than 460,000 participants found that the happiest time in people's lives is when they reach 70 years old. “We focused on changes in three central components of subjective well-being,” study co-author Professor Susanne Bücke explained in a statement.

With a model specification that avoids these four biases, we find an age-happiness trajectory that declines slowly over adulthood (altogether about half a scale point). The decline comes to a halt and we observe even a small increase (about one tenth of a scale point) during the golden ages.

The study, published in the academic journal Psychology Bulletin, is based on 443 samples from studies involving a total of 460,902 participants. Life satisfaction was found to decrease between the ages of 9 and 16, then increase again slightly until the age of 70.